Drilling foes coming together

Activists, including Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, deliver comments on new regulations

Updated 6:45 am, Saturday, January 12, 2013

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they went to the Environmental Conservation building Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking,...

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they went to the State Capitol Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking,...

Courtesy Kyle Hughes of NYSNYS.
/ Times Union

Courtesy Kyle Hughes of NYSNYS.
/ Times Union

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they went to the Environmental Conservation building Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking,...

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they went to the Environmental Conservation building Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking,...

Sean Lennon, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they held a press conference Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they went to the State Capitol Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking,...

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, representing Artists Against Fracking, joined other activist groups as they presented a letter regarding their views on fracking to Rich Azzopardi, Deputy Albany Press Secretary to the Governor in the State Capitol Jan. 11, 2013 in Albany, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

Yoko Ono, widow of the late John Lennon, invites people from all over the world to join her in spirit when she lights the Imagine Peace Tower on the island of Viðey, near Reykjavik, Iceland, Tuesday, Oct. 9 2012, in honour of all the activists of the world: past, present and future. The Imagine Peace Tower is a beacon of world peace and is the work of the legendary artist, musician and peace advocate Yoko Ono who dedicated it to the memory of her late husband John Lennon.

(AP)

Yoko Ono, widow of the late John Lennon, invites people from all...

Musician Sean Ono Lennon
(Kevin Winter, Getty Images)

Musician Sean Ono Lennon

Yoko Ono appears at a news conference to launch the coalition of artists opposing hydraulic fracturing on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012 in New York. The formation of the group, called Artists Against Fracking, comes as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo decides whether to allow shale gas drilling using high-volume hydraulic fracturing called hydrofracking. The group says such drilling is harmful and poses the threat of contamination. They say they want to spread awareness of the issue through "peaceful democratic action." Cuomo is expected to allow drilling to begin on a limited basis near the Pennsylvania border. The group is comprised of 146 members including Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Alec Baldwin. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Yoko Ono appears at a news conference to launch the coalition of...

Yoko Ono, left, listens as her son Sean Lennon speaks during a news conference to launch a coalition of artists opposing hydraulic fracturing on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012 in New York. The formation of the group, called Artists Against Fracking, comes as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo decides whether to allow shale gas drilling using high-volume hydraulic fracturing called hydrofracking. The group says such drilling is harmful and poses the threat of contamination. They say they want to spread awareness of the issue through "peaceful democratic action." Cuomo is expected to allow drilling to begin on a limited basis near the Pennsylvania border. The group is comprised of 146 members including Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Alec Baldwin. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Yoko Ono, left, listens as her son Sean Lennon speaks during a news...

Yoko Ono, left, and her son Sean Lennon, right, listen during an interview, following the launch of a coalition of artists opposing hydraulic fracturing on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012 in New York. Lennon and Ono have joined the coalition called Artist Against Fracking to lobby Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban the practice of drilling for gas in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Yoko Ono, left, and her son Sean Lennon, right, listen during an...

Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, far left, Cornell University engineering professor Anthony Ingraffea, second from left, and Sean Lennon, second from right, listens as Yoko Ono speaks during a press conference to launch a coalition of artists opposing hydraulic fracturing on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012 in New York. The formation of the group, called Artists Against Fracking, comes as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo decides whether to allow shale gas drilling using high-volume hydraulic fracturing called hydrofracking. The group says such drilling is harmful and poses the threat of contamination. They say they want to spread awareness of the issue through "peaceful democratic action." Cuomo is expected to allow drilling to begin on a limited basis near the Pennsylvania border. The group is comprised of 146 members including Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Alec Baldwin. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Accompanied by her son, Sean Lennon, and a platoon of hydrofracking opponents, Ono also delivered a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo calling for a continued moratorium on the controversial natural gas drilling technique.

The comments, contained in dozens of boxes bearing the names of the environmental groups formed to oppose hydrofracking, were prepared in response to the DEC's latest set of draft regulations, released in early December. The agency has been looking at hydrofracking, which uses high volumes of water and a small amount of chemicals to crack open underground gas-bearing shale, for more than four years. The drilling industry insists that the practice, which is used in several other states, is safe.

The 30-day comment period on the new set of regulations ended Friday.

"Fracking kills," Ono said. " ... The state of New York is not going to be crazy."

Anti-fracking activist and physician Sandra Steingraber, representing Concerned Health Professionals of NY, criticized the release of the regulations before the completion of the latest version of the DEC's mammoth environmental impact statement on hydrofracking, especially the chapter devoted to its potential health impacts — a key section now under review by the state Department of Health, with assistance from outside experts.

"The regs are thus arbitrary placeholders as part of a legal maneuver that allowed the DEC to avoid missing a rule-making deadline," Steingraber said. The DEC has admitted as much.

She called the composition of comments "the writing assignment from hell," due to what she described as the lack of transparency in the process and the brevity of the comment period during the December holiday season.

Although many of the advocates on hand doubt that any regulatory framework can make fracking safe, Steingraber believes the comment-writing exercise was useful both to put DEC and the Cuomo administration on notice of public opposition ("Silence is consent," she said) and to encourage close study of the new regulations.

Sean Lennon said that concern for his family's farm upstate got him interested in the issue. He said the process threatens an "unparalleled industrialization" of the state's rural regions.

It's not clear whether these comments will get the same close eye the DEC devoted to more than 60,000 comments received after the release of the most recent environmental statement — a pile that took months to review by both DEC staff and a private contractor.

"DEC will review, carefully consider and respond as appropriate to all comments received on the revisions to the regulations," agency spokeswoman Emily DeSantis said in an e-mail.

Asked what his father would have said about fracking, Lennon said John Lennon cared enough about nature to buy the property upstate. "That's my dad's house. ... It still is," he said.